


Invisible But Not Quiet

by Lamachine



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Crack, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 09:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3204356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamachine/pseuds/Lamachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Shaw moves into a new apartment, she gets stuck with an undesired roommate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt by Ladyshiva on Tumblr.

“Are you sure you don’t need a couple days off?” Cole asked again and Shaw groaned loudly in response, her cellphone uncomfortably stuck between shoulder and neck. “You just seem distracted.”

 

Shaw didn’t do distracted; she was focused and sharp at all times, and just because this was the fifth time she had misplaced her favorite handgun in one week, it really didn’t mean she had lost the touch.

 

“I think –”, Cole started, but Shaw didn’t let him finish.

 

“Say I need vacations again, and I’ll end you,” she replied angrily.

 

She heard a car door closing and a grunted “meet you there” before Cole finally hung up. Her apartment was still a mess even though she had moved in two weeks ago – Control had given them three missions during those fourteen days, and Shaw had crossed enough time zones to still be uncertain of when the sun was supposed to go down.

 

Nevertheless, this new job was everything she wanted, and she’d continue enjoying it despite the exhaustion – if she could only find her USP.

 

Something strangely resembling a laugh resonated against the bathroom tiles and Shaw paced down the corridor rapidly, her fists closed. She pushed open the door – why was it closed to begin with? – and felt a wave of cold air running down on her. Even though no one was there, Shaw had the awkward sensation of being observed. Yet she shrugged the feeling away as soon as she caught sight of her handgun, resting silently just beside her toothbrush.

 

She frowned as she grabbed it, its metal nearly freezing.

 

Her cellphone rang for the third time and she snapped back into action; there was no time to waste on the matter. Obviously she was just tired, Shaw thought, and she groaned when she realised Cole might have a point.

 

Not that she’d ever tell him that.

 

[...]

 

Things had calmed down at work and Shaw was, for once, appreciating the calm. She unpacked the rest of her belongings – weapons, mostly – and was getting ready to settle down in front of the TV for a lazy night. It was rare that she had time to relax, and too much of it only drove her crazy, but once or twice a month, it didn’t hurt to just sit back and watch a game. Especially since she had been shot twice in the same shoulder, and her muscles were killing her.

 

She had just found the right channel to watch the Colts against the Patriots when her television set switched to another channel without being prompted to.

 

“Come on Sam!” Judy Garland joyfully told Fred Astaire, and Shaw frowned. She grabbed the remote and tried to return to the game, but the TV wouldn’t budge.

 

On the screen, Judy grinned “we had a date, remember?” just as a second bottle of beer appeared on the settee beside Shaw. She pulled out her gun then, inspecting the corners of her apartment, the shadows of the night dancing dangerously.

 

Even though Shaw had pressed the mute button several times now, Judy Garland went on with her song, evidently unfazed by the strange events going on in Shaw’s apartment. “Never saw you look quite so pretty before,” her voice filled Shaw’s living room, the volume increasing more and more until Judy reached the end of her stanza, “and my heart beat fast as I came through the door.”

 

Shaw’s bedroom door shut loudly and she jumped to her feet, running towards the noise. Her gun drawn out she entered the room ready for a fight, but found it as empty as she had left it a couple of hours ago. In the living room, the television set continued playing _In Your Easter Bonnet_ and Shaw clenched her jaw.

 

Not one to take a joke lightly, she grabbed her phone and dialed Cole’s number without looking at the device. Eyes still scanning the room, she cleared her entire apartment waiting for him to pick up. When he finally did, he answered with a loud, drunken “hello” that had Shaw cringe.

 

“What have you done to my TV?” Shaw barked into the phone, hearing sounds of a party going on in the background of wherever Cole was tonight.

 

“I haven’t touched your TV,” Cole argued, voice slurred.

 

Shaw didn’t buy it. “It’s not funny you dick,” she groaned.

 

“Shaw, I don’t even know where you live,” Cole remarked. Some girl screamed his first name loudly and he laughed before he addressed Shaw again. “Look, I gotta go partner.”

 

The connection cut before Shaw could add anything, and this time she threw the phone across the room angrily. It opened on impact, the battery sliding under her bed, but Shaw didn’t care. She verified that her windows were still all closed and locked and cleared the rooms once again, returning into the living room as Judy Garland still bugged Fred Astaire to go to that damn Easter parade.

 

Determined, Shaw walked up to the television set and unplugged its cord, rendering it dark in a matter of seconds. She welcomed the return of the quiet, still wondering what the hell was going on.

 

She waited in the dark for half an hour before she finally drank the two opened beers on the settee, once again thinking that maybe there was something going on with her. Maybe she did need some rest after all.

 

It was only the next morning, when Shaw found her phone neatly placed on the corner of the kitchen table, its battery back into place, that Shaw realised there was something very wrong about her new apartment.

 

[...]

 

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Shaw asked Cole through her earpiece just before she placed a bullet in her number’s head.

 

Disturbed, Cole’s voice almost trembled. “Hmm, I don’t know, why?”

 

“Just a question,” Shaw shrugged, twisting open the cap of a gasoline tank she had found in the trunk. She spilled the liquid over the dead drug dealer resting in the back of his broken-down Buick.

 

“Is everything alright?” Cole questioned just as Shaw lighted up the match.

 

She was walking away from the fire when she answered with a short “nope” before cutting communications.

 

Truth was, with everything happening in her apartment recently, Shaw was really starting to believe in ghosts.

 

Either that, or she was losing her mind.

 

Somehow, the latter seemed like a less appealing explanation.

 

[...]

 

It was the fourth time this month, and Shaw wasn’t amused.

 

“Seriously?” she groaned. A bit louder, she grunted; “I just got rid of the other one two days ago.”

 

There was no answer; there rarely was. Shaw sighed, staring at her bathroom mirror. On it, in red lipstick, bold characters joyfully greeted her; _make a killing sweetie_. Shaw didn’t think it was funny, just like she hadn’t laughed with the three previous messages. The first one had been easier to wipe away; a giant heart with the equation _R+S_ inside. The second one had appeared a week later.

 

_Did you miss me?_

 

She hadn’t missed wasting her time cleaning a damn mirror, Shaw had replied loudly, and she had heard a light chuckle coming from her bedroom, but when she had gotten there the room was already empty. More and more she was convinced this ghost was destined to torment her through idiotic pranks and did not care for a more ambitious poltergeist. Not that Shaw wished for a more violent haunting, but then again, it would make more interesting stories than waking up to find _we’re gonna have so much fun together_ written all over a bathroom mirror.

 

This time, instead of cleaning up, Shaw slowly unscrewed it from the bathroom wall. Annoyed, she walked down the stairs of her building and dropped it with the rest of the garbage outside, jumping when Cole appeared by her side.

 

“Gotcha,” he smirked, but the grin disappeared from his face when Shaw furiously closed her hand around his throat.

 

“I knew you were behind this,” she hissed angrily, and Cole frowned.

 

He choked when he tried to talk, and so Shaw relieved the pressure slightly. “Behind what?” he asked, his hands still clawing on Shaw’s clothes, trying to steady himself.

 

“The pranks,” she replied angrily.

 

“What pranks?” Cole replied with a sincere worry, and Shaw let him go.

 

Irritation still bubbling inside, she pointed towards the mirror. “You mean you know nothing about _that_?”

 

Her accusation fell dull under the bright summer sunlight as Cole kneeled to inspect the mirror closer. “This is creepy Shaw,” he commented before he returned to his feet. “Someone left you that message?”

 

Shaw crossed her arms in front of her, uncertain on whether she should believe Cole or not. She thought about the many things Cole would’ve never been able to perpetrate – the constant overnight repairs of the stuff Shaw broke in anger; the few times she caught her USP compact floating in the air before her eyes; the laughs coming from other rooms. That cold air that seemed to squeeze her chest every time she thought someone was observing her.

 

“Or something,” she shrugged.

 

Cole frowned. “You don’t mean...” he started, and then he laughed. “Come on, don’t tell me Agent Shaw believes in ghosts!”

 

Shaw glared at him. “You would think about it too if you lived in my apartment,” she groaned, grumpily making her way towards the stairs. “What are you doing here anyway?”

 

A few seconds of silence passed, enough to indicate Cole’s levels of guilt. “Grice and I, we had a bet,” he started. “First to find your address gets to take Brooks on a date.”

 

It wasn’t until they were halfway up to Shaw’s apartment that she finally deigned talk to him again. “You know he probably just asked her out while you were wasting your time searching for me, right?”

 

His sad puppy face was enough to make her feel smug again, and so Shaw wasn’t ready for the sight awaiting her back in her apartment.

 

Beside her, Cole gasped as soon as she opened the door. “Woa,” he took a step forward, “this is some horror movie shit.”

 

Forming some strange, precarious pyramid in the living room, most of Shaw’s furniture was held in place by some invisible force. When she closed the door behind her Shaw heard Cole’s wimp of fear and she rolled her eyes.

 

“What, you’re pissed ‘cause I threw the mirror away?” she asked to the empty air.

 

One of Shaw’s rifles flew in front of her, the butt of the gun raking and hitting the floor in Morse code.

 

**\- . - -   .   . . .**

 

“Yes,” Cole translated, his eyes fixed on the firearm. He looked ready to bolt out the door, but his training had done him well and he stayed instead.

 

“It’s my mirror, I do what I want with it,” Shaw argued, crossing her arms in front of her.

 

**\- .   - - -**

 

She glanced at Cole, who tried not to shiver. “No,” he interpreted again.

 

“I’m not going to pick it up from the garbage,” Shaw retorted.

 

The ghost started to hit the firearm against the floor again, but instead of translating, Cole turned to Shaw. “Did you ever ask it what it wants?”

 

Shaw shrugged. “I don’t care what it wants.”

 

Cole opened his mouth to argue but Shaw cut him off, looking at the pyramid of furniture still erect in the middle of her living room. “You better put this shit back in place before I come back,” Shaw threatened, grabbing her keys and her cellphone before she opened the door, letting Cole go through it first. “Or I swear I’m putting my hammer into that television you like so much.”

 

She closed the door and it locked behind them. Cole just stared with an open mouth.

 

“What?” Shaw groaned, walking down the corridor like nothing had happened.

 

Cole followed, shivering at the thought that something was watching him. Something that didn’t like him one bit.

 

[...]

 

That was one of the reasons she didn’t like to fraternise with her fellow agents, Shaw thought as Cole shoved the Ouija board in her hands.

 

“What the hell am I supposed to do with that?” Shaw protested.

 

“You need to communicate with it,” he insisted. “If you know what it wants then maybe you can get rid of it.”

 

Shaw didn’t mind the idea of living alone again. Granted, since the pyramid of chairs, tables and lamps, her ghost had grown a bit quieter, but it was still there all the time, lurking. Moving Shaw’s guns from one place to the other, leaving half-done crossword puzzles on the kitchen table, flicking through channels every time Shaw sat down; Shaw’s undesired roommate was still as annoying as before, even without the bathroom mirror to scribble on.

 

“I don’t think a children’s game is gonna help,” she argued, even though she shoved the Ouija board into her backpack. It wouldn’t hurt to try, she thought.

 

Their mission went awry later that day and so it wasn’t a week later, when the ghost misplaced her grenades, that Shaw finally remembered the board. Rolling her eyes in annoyance, she gulped down a beer or two before she pulled it out of her bag. She installed the board on the living room table and sat on the couch, waiting.

 

The instructions sheet unfolded in front of her and Shaw glared at it. “I’m not reading that,” she argued, crossing her arms. An invisible finger tapped an annoyed rhythm on the table until Shaw sighed. “Fine,” she surrendered, “but you owe me.”

 

The printed characters were small and she squint her eyes trying to decipher what they were meant to convey. When she reached the part about setting the ambiance she stopped again. “Oh come on,” she ran a hand through her hair, “where am I even supposed to find candles?”

 

She heard a cupboard opening in the kitchen and a box floated towards her. “Right,” she muttered, remembering the emergency kit she had assembled before moving in the city. The ghost installed five candles on the table, neatly placed, and Shaw rolled her eyes. “Are we ready then?”

 

A box of matches was dropped on Shaw’s lap unceremoniously.

 

Shaw sighed as she lighted the five candles, thinking she wasn’t drunk enough for this. “Now?” she insisted anyway, and the indicator moved on its own across the board, pointing towards the left corner, “yes”.

 

That was a good sign, Shaw thought, but then again she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do exactly. It’s not like she wanted to get to know people, living or dead.

 

She waited a few seconds and the ghost, impatient, started to slide the indicator again.

 

 _R-O-O-T_ , it spelled out slowly.

 

Shaw frowned. “Root?” she massaged the base of her neck, confused. “That’s a dumbass clue if you want me to help you,” Shaw complained.

 

As the room became colder she shivered, adding to her irritation. She pushed it down, trying to be nice. “Not that I think you need help,” she corrected herself. “Or that I’d even help I mean, I’m kind of busy these days.”

 

The indicator moved again on the Ouija board, offering the same word. _R-O-O-T._

 

This time, Shaw’s annoyance exploded. “What fucking root are you talking about?” she groaned angrily, pulling a blanket over her shoulders as the temperatures dropped again.

 

_M-Y-N-A-M-E_

 

Shaw lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of a fucked up name is that?”

 

She felt a cold hand slapping the back of her head and she rose to her feet. “Hey, watch it Casper,” she closed her fists. “I’m not above hitting dead people you know.”

 

A light chuckle filled the living room’s silence and Shaw flinched. “Forget I said that.”

 

The indicator slipped towards the right corner of the board. _No._

 

“Anybody ever told you you’re annoying as hell?”

 

 

“Good.”


	2. Chapter 2

Cole could barely follow Shaw through the crowd, and she ignored him when he blamed her height for it. She slowed down when he complained that she was the one with the Taipei map in her pocket, and she had to admit he wasn’t wrong. She was acting a bit strangely, maybe.

 

Her cellphone vibrated and she peeked at the screen while she was waiting for Cole to catch up.

 

“Who’s that?” he asked as soon as he joined her, and Shaw shrugged.

 

“No one,” she answered, shoving her phone in her pocket. Cole didn’t look convinced, but he knew better than to poke around in her private life. They passed two more publicity boards with their number’s face on it and Shaw sighed. “He’s not gonna go down quietly,” she repeated for the hundredth time.

 

Cole placed one hand on his bag, almost as solemnly as someone about to swear on a bible. “Let me take care of the distraction,” he reassured her, but Shaw didn’t like this mission one bit.

 

Her phone vibrated again and she frowned, stopping on the sidewalk to text back; _Leave me alone I’m fucking working here._ Cole tried to peek over her shoulder and she glared at him.

 

“What?” she barked, walking away quickly.

 

Around the both of them the crowd moved aside, fearing Shaw’s death glares. “You’re on the job,” Cole noted.

 

Shaw shoved the phone back in her pocket. “So?”

 

“So, you’re texting,” he challenged. When Shaw didn’t react, he repeated; “you’re texting on the job, Shaw.”

 

As if to prove his point, her phone vibrated again. “Dammit Root,” she muttered, and Cole laughed.

 

“Root?” he frowned when Shaw glared at him. “What kind of a weird name is that?”

 

Shaw didn’t answer. They had twenty minutes to make contact and at this pace, they would never get to that building in time to assassinate their number quietly. Just the thought of having to kill him later gave her a headache. She ignored the text and walked faster, hearing Cole’s scarce breath just a few footsteps behind her.

 

“Who’s Root?” he asked a little more boldly.

 

She shrugged. “A friend,” and her phone vibrated again. “An annoying friend.”

 

Cole kept quiet for at least two minutes before he questioned her again. “You don’t seem like the type of person to have friends,” his cheeks reddened under Shaw’s stare. “I mean, friends that you text. On the job.”

 

Shaw ignored his concerned eyes for three street corners, until she couldn’t bear the concerned gaze of his puppy eyes anymore. “It’s the ghost, okay?”

 

His surprised and confused face was a nice change. “The ghost is texting you?”

 

“She likes the tech, I don’t ask why,” Shaw shrugged.

 

“The ghost is texting you,” Cole repeated, stunned.

 

Shaw took a sharp turn into an alleyway. “You’re the one who told me to get to know her,” she argued.

 

Cole followed her in, drawing out his gun at the same time she did. “Yeah but this is creepy, Shaw,” he shook his head in disapproval. “You get that it means a dead girl is texting you, right?”

 

“Way I see it,” Shaw checked her gun’s magazine before she opened the back door to their number’s building, “I kill people all the time.”

 

“Maybe,” Cold admitted, lowering his voice as they walked down the empty corridor. “But they usually don’t keep in touch afterwards.”

 

Shaw stopped at the entrance of the emergency staircase. “Just take your position,” she ordered him, opening the communication line of her earpiece. “I got the rest covered.”

 

“Sure you do,” Cole replied almost instinctively, but he didn’t sound so convinced.

 

[...]

 

Life was short and Tomas was hot, or at least that’s how Shaw reasoned her decision to bring back home a known criminal. He wasn’t on her hit list – well, not _that_ list – and so she saw no problem in having a little fun with him while he was in town.

 

He pushed her against the wall just outside her apartment’s door and she smirked against his lips, one hand trying to open the door. She found it already unlocked but didn’t question it, walking in with Tomas’s warm hands gripping her waist, stopping only to close the door behind them.

 

The lights were out and when Shaw tried to flick the switch, nothing happened. She frowned, pulling apart from Tomas and trying again.

 

“What the hell,” Shaw muttered, turning around to find Tomas pointing towards the couch. On it, a blanket covered what looked like the silhouette of a person sitting there quietly. It turned its head towards them and Tomas jumped.

 

“Shit,” he laughed nervously, “you didn’t tell me you had a roommate.”

 

Shaw shrugged. “I don’t.”

 

The silhouette moved from the couch, walking towards them slowly. The blanket didn’t reach the floor and under it, no feet or legs could be seen. Perhaps it was those missing limbs that had Tomas take a step back, pulling on Shaw’s jacket.

 

“What’s that?” he pointed towards the floating blanket.

 

Shaw sighed, stepping forward and pulling off the blanket angrily. “Root, it’s not funny,” she whispered, rolling her eyes.

 

Her phone vibrated. _You really picked a coward._

 

“Probably just the wind,” Shaw explained, forcing a smile through her irritation, but Tomas didn’t seem convinced.

 

“It looked like...” he hesitated, still staring at the blanket like it came from another planet.

 

Shaw laughed, heading for the kitchen to fix them both a drink. “A ghost?” Shaw suggested. She looked at Tomas with a playful smirk. “Please, like you’d believe that.”

 

He seemed to regain some confidence as he followed her. “Well, a beautiful woman like you invites me over for drinks,” he leaned on the counter just beside her and Shaw took in the smell of his aftershave, “I’d be ready to believe anything.”

 

Shaw’s phone buzzed. _That line would never work on a trained operative._

 

_And how would you know about that?_ Shaw texted back, smiling in apology when she noticed Tomas’ frown. “Work,” she explained, pouring two glasses of whisky.

 

“I don’t think you told me what you do for a living,” he scouted as they walked back towards the living room.

 

Shaw smirked. “No, I don’t think I did.”

 

When she didn’t add anything and only sipped her drink, Tomas nodded with a knowing grin. “I see, you’re a woman of mystery.”

 

On the table, Shaw’s phone butted in again. _He has no idea._

 

This time, Shaw didn’t answer, and turned her attention to Tomas instead. “You’re not an open book yourself,” she smiled as his fingers ran up her thigh.

 

“I’m not,” Tomas answered with a sultry voice. “But it seems it’s always easy to know what I want.”

 

Shaw’s smirk disappeared under his lips and she let her fingers run on his neck, fingers digging in his nape when he deepened the kiss.

 

The television set turned on, another musical loudly invading Shaw’s quiet living room. “I’m bluuue,” the singer crooned pathetically, “my life is through; I thought I had a date with you, I guess I just don’t rate with you.”

 

Groaning in anger, Shaw pulled apart from Tomas, trying to find the remote as, on the screen, Diana Dream continued to sing, “I wish I was dead – and buried!”

 

On the couch, Tomas hadn’t moved. “What’s going on?” he asked almost in a whisper, and Shaw heard the fear in his voice.

 

“Hm, it’s an old building,” Shaw explained, going through the settee’s drawers and searching under the cushions. “Electrical wires,” she continued even though she didn’t make much sense. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

 

On screen, Diana Dream repeated “I wish I was dead,” with increasing volume and Shaw sighed as she unplugged the television from the wall, deeply annoyed.

 

“And buriiied,” the song finished and Tomas took one look at the unplugged cord before he jumped off the couch. On screen, _On the Town_ played like Shaw hadn’t just cut off its power.

 

Tomas gazed at the rest of the living room nervously. “There’s something wrong here,” he told Shaw in a low voice, “it’s freezing.”

 

The television turned off as suddenly as it had turned on and the windows started opening and closing, the loud noises quickly accompanied by the doors of Shaw’s apartment hitting their respective doorframes violently.

 

“I’m getting out of here,” Tomas warned Shaw.

 

Shaw just shook her head. “It’s just the wind,” she explained again, but he was already out of the apartment, nearly running down the corridor. She closed the door behind him and everything stopped, quiet returning almost brusquely.

 

“What the hell, Root?” she complained. On the living room table, her cellphone buzzed again. She sighed as she ran a hand through her hair, annoyed. She crossed the room angrily and read the damn text message.

 

_You can do better._

 

Shaw wanted to argue; the guy was smooth and professional, easy on the eyes and quite the kisser. But now she was stuck with this image of him panicking and running away in fear and it completely broke the spell.

 

“Whatever,” Shaw brushed Root off. “I’m going to bed.”

 

[...]

 

The cool evening air stiffened her traits as she stared at the New York skyline, waiting for Cole to finish setting up his equipment. She sipped her coffee, turned cold, and groaned in annoyance.

 

“You’re more grumpy than usual,” Cole noted, turning on his laptop.

 

Shaw ignored him just like she pretended her phone wasn’t buzzing with the arrival of five new text messages.

 

Cole looked up. “Trouble with the girlfriend?”

 

“You’re not funny,” Shaw grunted.

 

“I just think it’s all very cinematographic,” he joked, plugging in the wire for the camera and checking the feeds. “You get to be Demi Moore and she’s Patrick Swayze, and you two just need to find Whoopi to get back together again.”

 

She threw her cup of coffee in the corner of the roof. “Drop it, Cole,” Shaw warned him angrily.

 

“I just figured with the cute girl you met at my party last night,” he started, unwillingly reminding Shaw of the awful evening she had, “that you’d be happier today. You did bring her home, right?”

 

Shaw kicked the ground, impatient. “It’s none of your business,” she replied, eager to beat down some thugs even though she was stuck on this inane stakeout. Cole dropped the subject, but the silence bothered her even more than the previous conversation. “And nothing happened anyway,” she added.

 

“How come?” Cole frowned, typing in a secure code before he started rolling the camera wire down the air vents.

 

“Root keeps scaring them away,” Shaw shrugged like it was nothing, but it was starting to be irritating. It wasn’t like Shaw brought home a lot of people; she usually preferred to go to their place. But it was still her apartment, and if she wanted to have sex with someone on her own kitchen table, she had every right to do so.

 

Cole chuckled. “Jealous, huh?”

 

“She’s just annoying,” Shaw retorted immediately. Root didn’t have feelings for Shaw; that idea was just ridiculous. “She’s doing it just to piss me off.”

 

“Hm-mm,” Cole semi-agreed. Shaw glared until he added, “you’re right. Forget I said anything.”

 

[...]

 

Shaw couldn’t forget. She rarely spent time in her apartment after that, leaving her cellphone behind so that Root couldn’t reach her. She guessed it was impossible for Root to leave the vicinity of the apartment, but then again, sometimes Shaw felt like someone was observing her even in the middle of the crowded street, and she was growing tired of the constant paranoia.

 

She flipped the business card between two fingers again, unsure. It left a bitter taste in her mouth to even think of calling the number written on there, but the more she thought about her predicament, the more she had no choice. She couldn’t wait until it got unbearable and affected her work; she’d never allow that.

 

Sighing, Shaw dialed the number on the payphone’s shaky touchpad. She didn’t want to be calling from her cellphone since Root had hacked it – well, haunted it. Shaw wondered if she would have to get an exorcism for her phone too; she made a mental note to ask later.

 

The man on the other line gave her an address and offered a meeting in an hour. Shaw agreed despite the shady nature of the whole business, and tried not to think of how desperate she looked by going to those lengths just to get a dead girl off her back.

 

The address brought her to an abandoned library in the center of Manhattan and Shaw pulled out her gun as she entered. The building sounded awfully quiet as she walked up the stairs, only to be met with the muzzle of a Glock.

 

“Welcome Agent Shaw,” the man in a suit flashed a smile at her and waited patiently until she lowered her handgun.

 

“Never said I was an agent,” Shaw replied, fingers still wrapped around her USP.

 

The man nodded. “It’s just what we do,” he extended his hand. “I’m Reese.”

 

Shaw hesitated for a second before she agreed to shake hands. He evidently took it as a sign of trust since Reese turned around and walked away, and it took Shaw a few seconds before she finally followed him down the corridor.

 

“What’s this place?” she asked, the blinking neon lights and dusty books not bringing her much confidence in their abilities. Then again, she wondered what kind of office she had expected. Ghost investigators probably didn’t hire secretaries.

 

“One of our headquarters,” Reese replied with a serious voice, but before Shaw could question him more they reached a well-lighted hall with tables hiding under piles of books. At one of them a man with glasses sat, deeply focused on his reading.

 

Reese cleared his throat. “We got a visitor, Finch.”

 

The man with glasses blinked before he turned his attention to them. “Oh, Miss Shaw,” he smiled, standing up and walking towards her with a smile and a limp. “Would you like some tea or coffee before we start?”

 

She didn’t have time to answer that already he had shifted his attention to Reese. “Mister Reese, if you could...?”

 

Without a word, Reese left the hall, and Shaw thought that maybe ghost investigators did have secretaries after all. She felt a bit smug as she crossed her arms, waiting for Finch to give her the pitch sale.

 

“From what I’ve gathered, Miss Shaw, you believe your apartment is haunted?” he asked her, leaning on a table as he pushed his glasses up his nose.

 

“I don’t know anything about this crap, okay?” Shaw warned him just as Reese reappeared at the entrance of the room. “But Root’s gotta go.”

 

Finch frowned. “Root?” he shared a look with Reese before going on; “it has named itself?”

 

Somehow it didn’t feel right to be calling Root an _it_. “ _She_ is called Root, yes,” Shaw corrected.

 

Reese joined them at the table, evidently forgetting all about the tea. Shaw didn’t mind; she preferred coffee anyway.

 

“Did she appear to you?” he inquired. He was well-trained not to show his emotions, but Shaw knew better; Reese was nervous about something.

 

“Not exactly,” she vaguely replied, her gaze running from Finch to Reese, not understanding the stress she was reading on their traits.

 

Finch nodded. “Miss Shaw, I know you have no reason to trust us, but if you want to solve this problem of yours, you’re going to have to trust someone.”

 

A few seconds of silence passed before Reese added; “we’re going to need more details if you want our help.”

 

Shaw sighed. When had her life turned into this freak show?

 

“She leaves me messages. Hides my things, scares visitors away, stuff like that. She’s just a brat,” Shaw described Root, her arms crossed as she shrugged.

 

“But you’ve never seen her?” Finch insisted again.

 

Shaw shook her head, and there seemed to be an unexplained sigh of relief in the rest of the room.

 

Finch nodded. He sounded hesitant when he questioned Shaw again. “Has she come into contact with you?”

 

Frowning, Shaw grunted; “I just told you she leaves me messages.”

 

Reese butted in before she completely lost her patience. “He means physically,” he explained. “Has she touched you?”

 

“That’s a weird question,” Shaw replied, but seeing as the two men seemed just about ready to snap in irritation, she answered. “No, she never did.”

 

In another room, a kettle was screaming for attention and Reese disappeared quickly. Finch looked lost in thoughts for a moment before he gazed at Shaw again. “I think we should meet this Root.”

 

The thought of having those two strange men poking around her things didn’t sound appealing at all. “She doesn’t like strangers,” Shaw warned.

 

Reese returned with two cups of tea. As if he had guessed what the conversation was about, he stared at her curiously. “I thought you wanted to get rid of her?”

 

Shaw wasn’t so sure anymore, but she wasn’t about to admit that aloud. “Well, yeah,” she agreed instead.

 

“Then why are you protecting her?” Finch questioned, silently thanking Reese for the tea.

 

“I was just warning you,” Shaw brushed them off.

 

She didn’t like the look they shared then; like they didn’t believe a word she was saying.


	3. Chapter 3

“Mister Reese, could you look at these readings?” Finch asked his associate, sitting at Shaw’s kitchen table. They had been poking around her apartment for two hours now, and still no sign of Root. Their equipment beeped and blinked a lot, but apart from that, Shaw had no clue whether their investigation was progressing or not.

 

She had grown impatient and was waiting in her living room instead of hovering around them, like she had been not-so-kindly asked by Reese about half an hour ago. From the kitchen she heard a few hums of worry or perhaps wonder, and then Reese appeared.

 

“You say she never showed herself to you?” he asked once again.

 

Shaw frowned. “No, she never did,” she tried to reel in her exasperation. “Why?”

 

Reese looked around her apartment like he was expecting Root to jump out of a wall. “She just seems very connected to you,” he started explaining and already Shaw felt the headache coming on.

 

“You see, Miss Shaw,” Finch continued Reese’s thoughts, “ghosts usually manifest themselves in smaller things.”

 

She didn’t see, and quite frankly, she wanted them gone, but she didn’t say anything. Cole had been shot on the job two days ago, and she still couldn’t shake the feeling that if she had been faster, more focused, it wouldn’t have happened. She needed Root gone.

 

“But the more you allow their presence around you, the more you let them in, the louder they will become,” Finch lectured like it was her fault and this time, Shaw couldn’t let it slide.

 

She crossed her arms and glared. “I never allowed her to do anything,” she grunted.

 

Her cellphone remained silent, but it still seemed to burn a hole through her pocket. Maybe she _had_ allowed Root some things like watching television with her sometimes or texting her when she was away on missions, but that didn’t mean she _welcomed_ her.

 

“It’s a good sign if you haven’t seen her,” Reese intervened before Shaw could get any angrier. “It means it should be easier to get her to leave.”

 

Finch nodded, picking up one of the many bags of equipment they had brought along with them. “We’ll analyse this data and call you back in a day or two.”

 

Reese grabbed the heavier luggage and followed Finch out the door, turning around at the last second. “Stay safe, Shaw.”

 

She closed the door behind him, frowning. She didn’t understand the danger they seemed to be concerned about. For all she knew, Root was just a bored dead girl with too much time on her hands.

 

She grabbed a beer from the fridge and slumped on her couch, turning on the television. When she found the sports channel she half-expected it to flick to another, but nothing happened. Pulling out her cellphone from her pocket she hesitated a few seconds before she dropped it beside her. She wasn’t about to start texting Root on her own; replying to her was one thing, but being the one who sends that first text? That was ridiculous.

 

Two hours and four drinks later, Shaw was still bothered by the quietness of her apartment.

 

_Where are you?_ Shaw texted Root. She heard the cellphone she had bought for Root buzzing in another room, and suddenly felt terribly stupid.

 

She received the reply only seconds later. _Beside you._

 

Shaw looked around the living room. Nothing seemed out of place and she wasn’t freezing like she usually did when Root watched her dumb musicals. She frowned. _I can’t see you._

 

She didn’t really know what she was expecting, but it still hit her like a punch when she read Root’s reply. _Do you want to?_

 

Shaw wondered what strange compulsion had brought her here. Why she hadn’t tried getting rid of Root weeks ago; how she wasn’t following Finch and Reese’s advice to just lay low. She toyed around with her cellphone for a minute or two, wondering what her answer would be. She felt Root’s eyes on her but she had no idea on where to look to glare at her.

 

“Yeah, okay,” Shaw’s voice sounded strangely hesitant. For a moment she pictured she might see Root just like ghosts appeared in most horror movies; as a cadaver, maybe horribly burnt to death or something equally gross.

 

Instead, she was met with the sight of a tall brunette with a killer smirk.

 

“Hi,” the ghost waved.

 

Shaw frowned. “Hi,” she replied.

 

A few minutes passed as Shaw stared confusedly; she blamed the beer.

 

Finally, Root sighed. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret.”

 

Shaw cleared her throat, blinking. “What secret?”

 

Root’s smirk deepened. “You think I’m hot.”

 

“No I don’t,” Shaw argued a bit too eagerly.

 

Root grinned. “I won’t tell anyone.”

 

“Who would you tell anyway? You’re dead,” Shaw answered grumpily, and a flash of sadness crossed Root’s face.

 

“Right,” she answered cryptically. “I am.”

 

[...]

 

It really wasn’t a good day, and Shaw had been through enough in life that she really couldn’t believe that she was simply the victim of some strange coincidences.

 

First, her morning coffee had tasted like copper; after a sip she had washed it down the drain instead of drinking it, and a strange smell had followed. She had proceeded with her day thinking that her coffee machine might needed cleaning, but now she really wondered if it hadn’t been poisoned.

 

Secondly, she had nearly electrocuted herself with the toaster oven. The damn thing now rested in the corner of her kitchen, smashed to pieces.

 

And now, a third crazy, impossible thing had happened. She held onto the windowsill of her living room window, trying to pull herself safely back inside, seeing as her balcony had just fell down ten stories below, crushing a car and a mailbox on the way.

 

It didn’t take much imagination to guess what was going on, and as soon as she managed to reach safety, Shaw yelled her name angrily.

 

“Root,” she cursed the ghost a thousand times. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

 

There was no answer.

 

“You better answer me or I swear I’ll exorcise the shit out of this apartment,” she threatened the empty living room.

 

Root appeared at the other end, leaning against a wall, yawning.

 

“Exorcisms are for demonic possessions,” she offered with a smile, but Shaw wasn’t amused.

 

“Well then I’ll do whatever dumbass ritual it takes,” Shaw groaned, crossing her arms.

 

Root looked at her nails like they needed to be done and Shaw rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

 

“You’re trying to kill me,” Shaw answered, crossing the room to glare at her from closer, trying to gauge her reaction.

 

“I’m not,” Root shrugged. “You can’t blame me for every freak accident –”

 

“My fucking balcony just fell from the building Root,” Shaw interrupted. “And I _know_ you poisoned my coffee.”

 

Root laughed under Shaw’s glare. “I really didn’t.”

 

Shaw didn’t believe her for a second. She grabbed her keys and went for the door.

 

“Where are you going?” Root asked, amused.

 

“Out,” Shaw barked.

 

Before she closed the door behind her, Shaw heard Root’s mocking voice, repeating what Reese had told her just the night before. “Stay safe, Shaw.”

 

[...]

 

“I want her gone,” Shaw declared as she walked into the library, making both Finch and Reese jump. They turned to face her, startled. “What?”

 

Finch frowned, closing the book he was consulting. “We know that already Miss Shaw,” he readjusted his glasses. “We told you we would be in contact shortly.”

 

Shaw groaned; _shortly_ wasn’t good enough. “I want her gone now,” she protested almost childishly. She didn’t care; Root had pushed it too far.

 

“Did something happen last night after we left?” Reese asked, concern twisting his traits.

 

A few seconds passed before Shaw answered, “no, not really.”

 

Reese towered her and she shrugged. “I think she might have been trying to kill me this morning,” she admitted instead of confessing that now she _had_ seen Root because apparently she had all the wrong instincts when it came to ghosts.

 

“What happened?” Finch walked to her, his worry obvious.

 

Shaw averted her eyes. “My balcony fell off the building,” she explained, not daring to talk about the poison in her coffee or the toaster oven event. “While I was on it,” she added when Finch opened his mouth, guessing what his next question was.

 

Silence filled the room for a moment as the two men contemplated what to do. Shaw’s gaze went from one to the other, having the feeling that they were in the dark just as much as she was. A few minutes passed before Reese spoke again.

 

“A ghost usually stays in this plane of existence because it has unfinished business,” he explained, Finch nodding in agreement.

 

“Yeah, pretty much any ghost movie says that,” Shaw grunted. “What’s your point?”

 

Finch shared a look with Reese before he took over. “It’s the most efficient and quick way of cutting a ghost’s connection to this world. Offering them closure.”

 

It sounded nicer than she had expected.

 

“It can be complicated since it requires a lot of information on the ghost itself, but since you two have a rapport,” Finch continued until Shaw cut him off.

 

“We don’t have a rapport,” she argued angrily.

 

Reese cleared his throat. “You two seem to communicate on a frequent basis.”

 

“She lives with me,” Shaw reminded them, annoyed. “Well maybe not _lives_ , but, she’s around. I can’t just ignore her,” she continued. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

 

Finch took off his glasses, cleaning the lenses as he spoke. “Are you sure, Miss Shaw, that you want to cut Root’s connection to this world?”

 

“Yes,” she nearly yelled.

 

“Well then you have to find what her unfinished business is,” Reese repeated. “And give her closure.”

 

[...]

 

The coffee and the pastries hadn’t pacified Cole enough. He had resisted as much as he could to being dragged out of his apartment at eight on a Sunday morning, and now that Shaw had successfully stuck him in her car with his laptop, he wasn’t working willingly.

 

“How do you know that’s even gonna work?” he complained for the sixth time.

 

Shaw sighed. “I don’t know, but I have to try something.”

 

He hummed in approval and focused on his computer again. “I still don’t see why we’re doing all this research from your car.”

 

“Your apartment stinks,” Shaw reminded him. “And mine is haunted.”

 

Cole nodded. “Right,” he agreed. It took him a few more minutes before he found something. “Hey, you have to read this.”

 

Shaw grabbed his computer to read the article he had just found; a story about a murder that had taken place a little more than twenty years ago, in Shaw’s building. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that it had occurred in Shaw’s apartment more precisely, even though the newspaper didn’t say. The picture at the top of the page confirmed that anyway; Root smiled brightly at the camera, a younger version than the one Shaw had seen. Under her picture, Shaw found her birth name. Samantha Groves.

 

“It says the guy who killed her is called Trent Russell, from Bishop, Texas,” Cole continued. “Apparently he got nine years and now he’s back in his hometown.”

 

Shaw turned to look at him, shoving his laptop back on his lap.

 

“No,” he said right away. “We’re not going.”

 

“Yes we are,” Shaw smiled just like she threatened, and Cole kept quiet as she drove the both of them to the airport.

 

[...]

 

Trent Russell lived in a small one-story house at the edge of town. The good people of Bishop apparently tolerated his presence, but from the local tavern Cole and Shaw learned the rumors that ran about him; parents telling their kids to stay away from his house. No one here used the word “pedophile”, but Shaw heard it in the way they tried not to talk about him too much, in the disgust they had when they mentioned his name.

 

All the more reason to kill him, Shaw thought.

 

The drive to his house was too quiet and she knew Cole had his doubts. She glanced at him and he seemed to find the courage to ask the question that had been burning his lips ever since they had gotten on the plane. “We’re going to kill him?”

 

Shaw didn’t reply; the answer was obvious.

 

“This is murder, Shaw,” Cole reminded her. “It’s not a terrorist target, and it’s not to save lives. It’s revenge.”

 

Shaw stopped the rental car on the side of the road and turned off the engine. “I can understand if you don’t want to do this,” she told him, trying her best not to sound irritated or angry. She didn’t have trouble sleeping at night, but she knew the job was taking its toll on Cole sometimes, and perhaps this was too much violence for her partner to witness.

 

Cole averted his eyes. “I can’t let you go there alone,” he replied.

 

She smiled. That was sweet of him, this idea that they needed to protect each other against the world, but Shaw had always been able to take more damage than him. “You can wait in the car,” she offered.

 

He nodded silently, and that was it. Shaw parked the car in Russell’s driveway, not caring about potential witnesses; he lived at the end of a nearly abandoned road, and it wasn’t like the people of this town were going to miss him. Good riddance, Shaw thought as she stepped out of the car.

 

She shared one last look with Cole before she broke down Trent Russell’s front door.

 

His hands shook too much to hold his rifle properly, and it took Shaw less than five seconds to disarm him and bring him to his knees. He started crying and begging for his life, telling her that he’d let her take anything she wanted if she just let him live.

 

“Too bad, Russell,” Shaw shook his head. “It’s your life that I want.”

 

He blinked in surprise, unsure of what to say.

 

“Do you remember Root?” she asked him and he seemed even more confused. “Little Sam Groves,” she reminded him as she punched him hard, cutting his lip open.

 

Wiping the blood from his lip, Russell nodded.

 

“Rumor in town says you like the little girls Russell,” Shaw continued, grabbing his head by what little hair he had left and smashing his face against the living room table.

 

He cried out in pain. “Please,” he begged again, his hands gripping Shaw’s clothes, trying to pull her closer. “I swear I never touched her.”

 

Shaw moved apart and kicked him down this time. “Russell, Russell,” she kneeled beside him. “You know I wanna believe you.”

 

Russell’s eyes were filled with tears. “She set me up,” he tried to explained, but Shaw’s disgust turned into another punch in his sorry face.

 

“Sure she did,” Shaw wanted to spit on him, but she remembered what Cole had said. This was murder, and when killing someone against the law instead of under government orders, one had to be at least a little careful.

 

“She set up this bank account,” Russell spoke before she could hit him again. “So that this street gang would kill me.”

 

That wasn’t in the newspaper article. Curious, Shaw returned to her feet and dragged herself a chair, sitting beside him as she waited to hear more.

 

“They came to kill me, asking for their money back, so I paid them,” Russell continued. “With every penny I had.”

 

His voice was growing in anger and Shaw wasn’t surprised when he told her the rest. “I knew it was her. The fucking brat,” he spitted out the insult with so much disgust that Shaw stood up again.

 

“Why did she set you up, Russell?” Shaw asked, taking the safety off her gun.

 

He wouldn’t say.

 

Shaw’s phone buzzed and Shaw accepted the call without looking at the screen, somehow expecting Root’s voice. Instead, she heard Cole’s.

 

“I found an old amber alert from back then,” he told her right away. “Hanna Frey. About the same age as Groves. I guess he killed her too.”

 

Shaw nodded. “Thanks,” she answered just before she cut the connection, placing the phone back in her pocket.

 

“Wanna talk about Hanna, Russell?” she kicked him down and he stayed there, terrified.

 

Shaw shook her head. His time was up. “Well this is a gift from Hanna and Sam,” she promised him with a smile before she placed a bullet between his eyes.

 

[...]

 

The flight back to New York had been uneventful. Cole was quiet as usual, although he hadn’t said anything about the murder. He insisted on taking a cab home instead of Shaw driving him and for a moment, Shaw thought she had pushed him too hard. But just before he slipped into the backseat of a yellow cab, Cole turned to look at her.

 

“He deserved that,” he simply stated before he slumped down. “See you on Tuesday.”

 

Shaw nodded before she returned to her own car, ready to head home. She had already disposed of the gun she had used to kill Russell and of the clothes she had wore then, and for a moment she wished she still had something, anything, to keep her busy.

 

She unlocked her apartment door with the strangest feeling, like she wanted to head inside but also feared what she would find. She went in anyway, not being one to back down, and found everything just as she had left it.

 

She went from one room to another, clearing them silently, repeating to herself that she wasn’t looking for Root. She spared a glance to her cellphone but she had no new messages, and she sat on the couch and stared at her turned off television screen, exhausted and empty.

 

A few drinks later she remembered what Finch and Reese had told her; that she had given Root closure, and it made the silence just that much more bearable.


	4. Epilogue

Shaw found the Ouija board in the back of her closet as she searched for her USP compact – she could’ve swore that she had left it in the freezer but now it was nowhere to be seen. She grabbed the children’s game almost with reverence and felt her heartbeat going wild for a few seconds.

 

It was stupid. It was a dumb idea.

 

She went to work and tried to forget about it, but her mind kept going back to the ridiculous board. As soon as she had completed her mission she went by the store to buy some candles and returned home with the strangest feeling.

 

Setting the Ouija board on the living room table had been quick and easy, but now she struggled to remember how Root had positioned the candles exactly. Shaw took her time to place them around the board even though she kept sighing loudly, finding herself absolutely ridiculous. She grabbed herself a beer and gulped it down, stalling.

 

Finally, she stopped toying with her lighter and lighted the candles. She waited a minute or two again, before she found the courage to speak.

 

“Root, are you there?”

 

The indicator moved ever so slowly towards the left corner. “Yes.”


End file.
